Blog

« Back

Does Your Boss Suck?

April 12th, 2022 by Kenneth Abrahams

If you’ve worked long enough, chances are you can answer this question with a resounding yes. Count me in that category. I, like so many of you, have had a terrible boss or two. Embarrassingly enough, I have also been a terrible boss. It is hard to write those words, but they are in fact true. Never having shied away from tough conversations or challenging the wrongs that I see; it would be disingenuous not to include myself. Like many others before me, I was thrust into a position of leading and managing others with no training and too much ego.

About a decade ago, we hired a business coach to provide us some tools and strategies to run the company better. His agreement included full and unfettered access to our staff, goal setting sessions with the 2 owners, and monthly coaching sessions which included accountability check ins. One of the first things he did was to conduct a survey with all office and full-time program staff. Before the survey was sent out, I was confident that I had a good handle on how staff within the organization felt about Wayde and myself. When the results came in, to say I was shocked would be an understatement. A few questions were particularly eye opening:

Did staff know when they had done something wrong? An overwhelming majority said yes.

Did staff know when they had done a good job? An overwhelming majority said no.

Were staff treated equally? An overwhelming majority said no.

Were staff treated fairly? An overwhelming majority said yes.

When we received the results of the survey some of the themes that were illuminated were troubling, even downright unsettling. Bottom line was that the staff always knew when they were in trouble but didn’t always know when they were performing well. Other comments pointed out that many people in the office felt like somebody was always in my doghouse and that my favorite way of dealing with conflict was to give individuals the silent treatment. Nobody in the organization liked being around me when I was angry, especially if they were the target. It would have been easy to slough this all off and take the attitude that if they didn’t like it, they could leave. Fact of the matter is that the information hurt. It made me do a lot of soul searching and make some hard changes.

There are still things that I need to improve on, but I feel like I have made some positive changes over the years. Unfortunately, there is a lot of scarring within the organization that will never go away. There is an old story about a boy who had a bad temper. To try to correct the problem, his father had him hammer a nail into a fence every time he lost his temper. Over time, the boy understood the problem and began to change. Once he had his temper under control, his father had him pull all the nails out, one nail each day that he held his temper. After all the nails were out, the father and the son looked at all the holes in the fence and the father told the boy that although the nails were gone, the fence would never be the same. When we mistreat people or are unkind to them, we are like the boy driving the nails, we leave a mark. I am lucky that the people I work with have been willing to accept me for the flawed individual I am. I am still learning, still growing, and still changing, but I believe, at the very least, I don’t suck anymore.

Here are a few things that I have learned along the way:

1. Put the 2X4 away. Nobody likes a bully, especially if it is their boss. For years, I followed Teddy Roosevelt’s advice and carried a big stick. Unfortunately, that is a very ineffective way to build the type of organization that most of us want. Why should people that are not treated well push to make the company or department the best it can be?
2. Listen. We were given 2 ears and one mouth; we should use them proportionally. If you actually listen to what people are telling you, things tend to go much better. People that you work with often have great suggestions on how to improve the organization and come up with new products, services, and programs.
3. Be honest in what your needs are. Often during our staff meetings, I would ask a question wanting a certain response and the staff struggled, trying to figure out the answer that I wanted. Stupid waste of time. Now the questions that I ask are truly to seek their opinion and counsel. If it is something that I have a strong opinion on, I let them know, explain why I believe that and allow them to challenge me. Interestingly enough, they are more willing to challenge me now than they did in the past.
4. Get help from outside your organization. Many of you know that most of my clients are colleges and universities. Few groups of people struggle more with management issues than this group. So often people come out of grad school and get a job as a coordinator or assistant director of activities. Over time, they get promoted to associate director and then perhaps on to a director level positions. At one or more of these levels, they will be supervising staff with little or no training on how to do that. Over a year ago, I mentioned to one of the higher education associations that we belong to that I would like to work on doing some mid-level manager training sessions. Great idea they said, we will connect with you about it. Periodically I would check in and I was told they still had it on the radar. Recently, I got an email from them announcing their new management training sessions. Almost the entire curriculum is being presented by people with their EdD’s and PhD’s, other than risk management nobody from the world outside higher education is included. Our business coach was from a manufacturing background and knew precious little about FUN Enterprises and what we do. He understood how to manage and that was what we really needed. Some of the principles easily translate from one industry or profession to another.
5. Follow the Advice of Brené Brown and others, lead with vulnerability and humility. If you haven’t watched any of her Ted Talks, viewed a webinar of her, or read any of her books, you are missing something. Her point of view is fascinating, and her leadership advice leads to real change and empathetic leadership in an organization. Also high on my list is the book The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team, by Patrick Lencioni. It is a quick read but like Brown he stresses the need for honesty and authenticity to create trust in the base of the organization. He too talks about vulnerability and the need for conflict to create a stable organization.
6. Admit your mistakes and apologize. We all make mistakes, and we need to own those mistakes. Our team at FUN is very dedicated but they are human, and mistakes happen. What I came to realize was that when they made mistakes, they took responsibility for them and already felt badly about what had happened. My calling them out made them feel worse and had no benefit to us as an organization. Now, what we try to do is talk about the issue in the context of whether the issue was a one off, something that just “slipped through the cracks” or an issue that is a potential system wide problem. Our goal is improvement, not punishment.

If you supervise people, remember they are just that people, living, breathing human beings. How you treat them, work with them, and supervise them is important.

If you are in management and need help, please give me a call, or shoot me an email. I may not have an answer, but I am always willing to listen and have a conversation.

About the author:

Ken Abrahams is a very reluctant supervisor and manager. For years, he struggled to manage himself let alone others. Like many people he is a work in progress.

 

To find out more about the company go to our website www.funent.com you can also go to this link to sign up for our newsletter which comes out about 6 times a year https://funent.com/subscribe-to-the-funny-pages/.  Our newsletter will tell you more about the company and the products and services we offer as well as some games, things to do and the occasional cooking tip.